


不眠 : insomnia

by echoedsong



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: (he's choking on water), (not completely at least), Aged-Up Character(s), Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Angst and Feels, Banana Fish References, Choking, Emotions, Extended Metaphors, Loneliness, M/M, Memories, Not Canon Compliant, One Shot, Open to Interpretation, Photographer Okumura Eiji, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Banana Fish, Pre-Side Story: Garden of Light, Spoilers, garden of light references, minor drowning for like 5 seconds, one (1) thought of self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:47:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25344157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/echoedsong/pseuds/echoedsong
Summary: It’s been five years since Eiji has moved to New York. Five years of a broken heart silently crying out in the midst of cold, sleepless nights.
Relationships: Ash Lynx & Okumura Eiji, Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji, Okumura Eiji & Sing Soo-Ling
Comments: 3
Kudos: 34





	不眠 : insomnia

**Author's Note:**

> GoL references and 97% post-canon but fic is up for interpretation (vague enough + 3% non-canon) so if you don’t want a certain man to be dead, he doesn’t have to be :>
> 
> Please note that what happens in the fic can be seen as Eiji having a bad day or a normal one. Everything is at the reader’s discretion so feel free to let your imagination fill in any holes or questions you may have! (You can also ask me @ [twitter](https://twitter.com/lovele_ah) or [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/leahahaha), although I may not have an answer either)
> 
> [PLAYLIST](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/22zVkW6l9FJkRRal9RfHff?si=y8UMCrVMRqqHFnbqCvjOEA) \-- don’t have to listen, but these are inspo/mood setters if ur up for that

_Day and night become one,  
Memories pile up and do not leave the bottom of my eyes.  
In a moment like this, in a moment like that,  
You have always been, to me._  
(Dvwn, Insomnia)

.

The sky is bleeding. There’s a burning red oozing out of the setting sun, seeping into the blue of a rising night. A few lingering clouds have been caught in the crossfire and are stained with their clashing. It’s a far away fire fighting against the inky depths of a sea in the sky. Roofs of homes rise dark and motionless against the blazing heavens. Up the street, the sun is barely visible behind the silhouetted peak of a house. It strains almost desperately to stay afloat in the sky, grasping onto the rooftop as if it were a lifeline against the surging darkness. 

But Eiji’s tired. He hasn’t slept― hasn’t _been_ sleeping, and this sky he might’ve once taken time to admire, is no longer of profound interest. This breathtaking battle of day and night could hypothetically pose a great addition to his photography work, but Eiji can’t bring himself to care. In all reality, what’s one sunset from another. It’s a constant cycle of the sun’s almost torturously slow departure and the returning reign of a darkness that was hidden, still living and breathing in every corner of the earth.

A breeze tickles at the little bits of Eiji’s exposed flesh, raising hairs and goosebumps. He resists an instinctive shiver. The deepening season is chilly, with the unyielding cold of a New York winter nipping at Autumn’s heels. Another season is passing by. The heaviness of an exhaustion so familiar, sighs inside of Eiji, sinking lower into his being. It drags along the frigid emptiness of loss, loss that has used time only to grow colder. 

Eiji curls in on himself, hunching his shoulders against the persistent bite of the cold beyond and beneath his skin. He folds the heaviness away too, driving it away like the prevailing night against the wavering sun. Eiji tucks his face deeper into the woolen scarf around his neck, hands fisted and shoved deep in his trench coat pockets. His cheeks and fingers are still prickling. 

_It appears one cannot always escape the cold, even when hidden away._

The gentle wind gasps softly in his burning ears, bringing the rustle of crisp, fallen leaves on the pavement and a kiss of snow and ice soon to come. Eiji’s glasses are fogging up from his warm breaths escaping from the scarf, and he can hear the distant tapping of his worn boots against the uneven pavement. His footsteps sound vaguely in his ears, as if he was not the one present in this body. Instead, it is almost like he’s listening to someone else walking some distances away. Eiji wonders languidly if this numb, impassive feeling he’s become accustomed to, is only due to the weather.

He walks, one heavy foot in front of the other. With every step, the weight in his shoes increases. Eiji wonders how walking could be so easy and so terribly hard at the same time. The heaviness of his feet make the pavement seem like fresh, hardening concrete around his shoes. Yet, his steps don’t falter and his stride doesn’t break. It feels like he’s plodding along, dragging his toes through the ground, but the steady pace and light sound of his steps contradicts it. He considers idly when he’s most likely to end up tripping on the uneven sidewalk, especially with these seemingly burdensome toes of his. 

Then Eiji’s mind is starting to float off again, this weight still not nearly enough to keep him grounded. It is all a rhythm his body is accustomed to anyways; drifting home listlessly at the end of a long day at work, step left, right, left, right, breathe. Nothing is stopping his head from drifting off.

Rather, the cold demands his attention yet again with another exhalation of wind. His skin tingles with another rise of gooseflesh and hair. But again he doesn’t feel the cold, not really. It’s not as frigid as Eiji remembers it to be. In all honesty, this temperature has become as mundane as his daily life. It’s become a frequent presence around him, inside of him. He continues onwards, the cold going ignored once more. It laments in his ears, but Eiji isn’t listening.

His mind is caught up in the swirling of crisp, fallen leaves in the wind. The dull orange and red, still tinged with remnants of green, dance on the ground. They take flight with a breath, joyfully airborne, completely taken by the gale. Eiji wants to be swept up too. He wants to be swept up by warm, familiar arms. He yearns to be wrapped in an embrace, to be held close, closer to another body. Ash’s body. If only Eiji could press his ear to the other’s chest and listen to his steady breathing, his quiet heartbeat, and to feel the rise and fall of his ribcage beneath his head. If Ash were by his side, he would chase the cold away, the nights spent without rest, the dreams which torture Eiji when his exhausted body finally succumbs to sleep. 

He exhales. The warmth of his breath in his scarf makes his lips warm, as if kissed by another. Eiji can almost feel the heat of another hand in his, hear a familiar voice laughing, smiling. His skin tingles with the traces of an embrace ingrained in his mind. There’s warmth around him, along with the ghosting sensation of firm arms. Eiji can feel the rise and fall, the heat of another body pressing weightily against his own. He inhales slowly, cold air slinking down his throat. 

A faint murmur in the wind. Eiji jerks, breath catching and eyes leaping from the agile leaves to scan the area around him. His next step is rushed and the toe of his shoe catches on the pavement. He trips, stumbling forwards to catch himself. When Eiji regains his balance, even though he hadn’t fallen, he feels like something has still managed to be broken. The breeze whispers sorrowfully once more before dying down. The leaves fall, making a fluttering descent back down to the ground. The air is silent, a held breath. Whatever he had heard or felt, has disappeared with the wind.

Eiji walks on. The street lights are faint stars glimmering down the road, bright against the fading red and deepening blue of the sky. The dark, bare trees lining the way make the lights blink as they dip in and out of sight behind naked branches. Eiji is numb and tired. His steps slow as he approaches the house. At the steps, he pauses. Eiji doesn’t look up from the ground, eyes trained on the wooden stairs at his feet. He lifts a hesitant right foot, placing it tentatively on the step. And with a sharp inhale, he pushes himself up the remaining steps to his home.

The porch creaks a welcome under Eiji’s weight as he makes his way across the length of the wooden flooring towards the front door. He can see the windows in his peripheral, outer shutters open as usual but the curtains inside drawn closed. As he keeps his vision trained on the door growing closer and closer, he can almost see the shadows leaking from beneath it. Black seeps onto the deck, drowning the worn doormat in darkness. Eiji’s head starts to spin. 

The slight detailing of the door’s panels are barely visible in the poor lighting and the smooth, dark wood swims in his vision. Trying to focus, he can hear the sounds of night encroaching. A couple of kids are laughing further up the street. They are loud, laughter bright, and joyful. A dog begins to bark harshly at them from a backyard, cautious curiosity apparent, until it is hushed sharply by it’s owner. The children fall silent. His head stops spinning. The shadows have disappeared and the night is still.

Eiji halts at his front door. He stares at the solid mahogany wood; the only barrier left between him and the suffocating amount of nothingness within his home. Eiji slowly uncurls his fisted hands to fish his key out from the depths of his coat pocket. He feels shaky, still quivering with the aftermath of the dizzy spell. He feels like his hands are trembling but, when they emerge, his right raising to rest the key on the lock, they are steady. Another pause. Eiji hasn’t let the key slip into the hole just yet. 

Instead he leans forward, letting his forehead knock softly against the door. He rests there for a moment, closing his eyes briefly. So it’s the beginning of yet another night of his inability to stop himself from floating away or to escape being buried by the night. Eiji could be light and as unfeeling as a feather, laying listlessly beneath his insubstantial sheets and watching the moon make its journey across the sky. Or drowning in the weight of silence and darkness, slowly sinking into his mattress, unable to muster up the effort to try clawing himself out of the sheets to breathe. 

With his eyes shut, the sky beckons to him. Darkness underneath closed eyelids, pinpricks of lights dancing across the vast emptiness. It urges him to fall into its embrace. His ears tingle at a whisper of breeze, bringing along a voice he hasn’t heard since— since.

_Eiji_ , it sighs.

His eyes snap open and it disappears, both the tantalizing darkness and the faint voice. The blazing, bleeding sun is being overtaken by the night. It has disappeared behind that rooftop, lingering pink-red haze swirling in the murky blue. He slides his key into the slot, twisting. At the click, he pulls it back out and turns the knob, opening the door with a squeak. Stepping inside, the darkness is breathing. It welcomes him home with a cool touch to his skin and discrete hello in his head. It’s all a greeting he’s gotten used to. 

Eiji slips out of his boots, placing them lightly on the shoe rack in exchange for his slippers. He continues further into the house, plastic slapping mutedly against hardwood. He starts unbuttoning his coat as he passes by the arrangement of picture frames hanging in the hallway. Dust has begun to make its home there in the absence of photos and tender attention. 

Moving through the unlit living room, Eiji sheds his jacket and scarf, throwing them haphazardly over the back of the couch. He reaches the staircase leading up to the second floor. Without any lights on, the steps are barely distinguishable shadows in front of him. Somehow Eiji manages to climb them without a hitch. His feet continue to move mechanically, bringing him to his bedroom almost too quickly. The room is dark as well, only faint moonlight filters through the bedside window’s partially opened curtains. 

Eiji makes his way quietly through the space, ignoring the closest as he passes by, as usual. He had once made the mistake of opening it to retrieve some clothing some months ago. Eiji had learnt very quickly in that moment that those doors are not to be touched. Unless he wishes to release many more painful memories along with the all-consuming feelings of grief and emptiness. Memories of everything that once was. Feelings stemming from a presence who used to share this home. 

He reaches the dresser, opening it mindlessly and snatching up a pair of pants, a shirt, and underwear. Eiji pads into the connected bathroom, the fabrics clutched tightly in his grasp. He flicks on the light and immediately squints against it, eyes burning from the sudden exposure. He blinks hard, forcing his eyes to adjust. The pair of ceiling lights emit a cold, detached brightness. He shivers. The walls lean in at his discomfort. 

Eiji closes the door behind him, narrowly avoiding looking in the mirror as he turns back around. He switches on the water and it spits once, twice before stabilizing. The stream sounds harsh against the white shower tiles, resounding heavily in the silent bathroom. Eiji strips, wrinkled dress shirt, belt, pants, socks, underwear discarded carelessly at his feet. He steps onto the plush grey floor mat and then into the shower, pulling the curtain shut after himself.

The powerful cascade of scalding water stings and burns his skin unforgivingly, but Eiji still feels the unchaseable chill settled deep in his bones. He hugs himself for a moment under the steady flow, arms cradling one another as he hunches inwards against the water. Slowly, Eiji manages to unwrap himself and begin mindlessly going through his routine. 

The hands massaging his scalp don’t really feel like his own. The shampoo being rinsed out stings his eyes. Detachedly, with still burning eyes, Eiji looks down at himself. The small cuts and bruises that used to be scattered over his skin no longer exist. He can still feel the ghost of sensations from when they had been fresh. He runs the soap over himself. His bones feel strange under his hands. The scar on the side of his lower abdomen is barely visible beneath the foaming body wash. 

A harsh, caustic laugh swells in Eiji’s chest. These are the only traces of Ash left on his body, the remnants of a time spent in his care. He brushes his fingers lightly over the scar, it tingles at the fleeting touch. This is what took him away from Ash. Eiji caresses it again, fighting the temptation of digging his nails into it instead. One of the few memories of Ash stained on his body and one of the few factors that tore them apart. Love and hate. The laugh dies out and a sob lodges in his throat in its place. 

Eiji lets his hands fall from his body. They hang limply by his sides. And he stands. Stands under the downpour of water, letting it flow from his head and over his face. He lets his eyelids lower against the liquid, half lidded vision fixed on the shower wall. The water still blurs his sight, cascading over his eyes, nose, and mouth. The steady rhythm of the water against the tiles is white noise in his ears, tapping distantly. He should’ve known that this was his mind emptying itself to allow for other sounds to invade his head.

It comes suddenly; the merciless, onslaught of memories.

“I’ll protect you, Eiji. don’t leave my side!” It’s loud, too vivid in his mind and it surprises Eiji into inhaling sharply and choking, some air, some water. It smells and tastes like blood, iron sliding through his mouth and nose. 

“I do not want to.. lose you. If that happened.. I think I’d go crazy.” His own voice rings in his ears. Eiji’s coughing violently, but unable to move from beneath the water. His tongue burns with sharp antiseptic, acrid gunpowder.

“I wait for you.. Always! Please come back!!” He gasps at his own desperate voice resounding in his head, still spluttering on water. Smoke stings Eiji’s nostrils, the droning of water becomes the whirring of a helicopter. His lungs are screaming.

“Stay with me...just for now, Eiji. I won’t ask forever.” His eyes and throat are throbbing. The taste of salty tears rises to his tongue.

“I don’t want to lose you! For you, I would do _anything_ , Ash!!” 

Eiji blindly reaches forward and grasps at the shower valve clumsily. He shuts off the water and stands, dripping, hand still on the knob. His breath is coming fast and raspy. He coughs, a pathetic wheeze. Cold air drafts through the curtain. The droplets of water trailing down Eiji’s skin feel like ice cold memories and moments frozen in time. The protectiveness they shared for each other, the promises and demands they had made to each other. All of which was only to never be spoken about before they went their separate ways. Memories and moments that hadn’t been fully understood― that hadn’t been given the chance to be reached. 

He watches the last bits of bubbling water trickle and swirl down the drain. His haggard breathing has slowed, his heartbeat too. Promises never met, pointless declarations of something that ended up being nothing. The last bit of water gurgles as it descends. Eiji’s mind quiets, returning back to stillness.

He pulls back the shower curtain and steps out. His feet sink into the dry mat and the cold air rushes to greet him. The shivers set in and Eiji glances up from the floor to look for his towel― only to see himself. The exhausted set of his face stares back at him, all sharp angles and harsh shadows. 

_Since when have you become this skinny, so pitiful looking?_ The mirror asks him.

His ribs, his collarbones, his cheekbones, all jutt out so prominently and the bags are shadows stretching out under his eyes. They contrast unkindly with his pallor. Eiji’s limp, uncut hair drips pathetically, stuck to his forehead and the nape of his neck. The dripping down his neck and back is cold and uncomfortable. The water trickles down his face, beneath his eyes and over his cheeks. It is as if he is crying. 

He blinks droplets out of his vision, only to see a familiar figure standing next to himself in the mirror. It’s a flash of Eiji’s once healthier body with fuller flesh and fresher scars, and the tall blonde man who once lived in this space with him. Ash is handing him his towel, hand sneaking up to ruffle Eiji’s wet hair. Then he’s snagging him around the waist, pressing Eiji’s backside to his underwear-clad front and his bare chest. Laughter rings in the bathroom and they’re both smiling so joyfully. It’s all warmth in his embrace and with everything so bright around them, they seem to be glowing.

Then he sees it in the mirror; Ash’s hand resting on his hair. The heat from his palm, the weight of it, suddenly seeps into his scalp. Eiji reaches to put his hand over Ash’s hand and― it dissipates. The reflection fades. It’s just him, a worn down pile of bones. He realizes he’s still shivering, dripping wet and that the light has dimmed, turning cold once more. His hair is cold and water-logged against his fingers. The little place in Eiji’s chest aches fiercely. He slips his hand from his head to pluck his lonely towel from its hanger. It is coarse and unkind against his hands and skin as he dries himself off.

Eiji gets dressed, soft textures gentle against his body. His stomach churns abruptly and his heart tightens, making him pause. Looking down at what he’s wearing, it registers fully that these are one of Ash’s plain cotton t-shirts and pairs of fleece pants. Eiji’s hands itch to rip them off and throw them far, far away, maybe burn them too― and yet he also wants to bury his face in the fabrics to see if they still smell like Him. He slowly uncurls his hands from where they had been clenching the shirt, releasing the fabric from his grasp. The fist around Eiji’s heart does not lessen.

He gradually goes on to brushing his teeth, all the while his scalp tingles as if waiting for a hand to come and rest on his hair, or anywhere on his body at that. Even a voice in his ear will do. It still never comes. Eiji can feel his body awaiting another presence with his; a body, a voice, the sound of another person brushing their teeth alongside him. He spits his mouthful of toothpaste into the sink, rinsing his mouth and the toothbrush. The silence afterwards is loud in his ears.

Suddenly, unbridled tears spring to his eyes. Tremors wrack Eiji’s body, and he reaches for the counter to brace himself. He grips tightly at the edges, barely keeping himself standing. His legs want to collapse God, he’s really shaking. Eiji’s heart is _aching_. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to repress the tears threatening to overflow onto his cheeks. He can feel his shoulders trembling besides his ears, raised high up in his efforts to hold himself together. 

It hurts. It _hurts_. When had it all become a physical pain? When had the absence of Ash become something harming his body, not only his mind? How is he supposed to get by without Him by his side? Eiji shudders, exhaling shakily. It sounds almost like a sob. He can feel the liquid welling in his trembling eyelashes. This life without him, has become so cold and empty. The multitude of days and nights are full of the same bleak, nothingness. Weeks and months all blur together.

Eiji is at a loss for what to do. He has been for the past five years. He’s made it this far, yet nothing has changed. If anything, it’s gotten worse. Once he was past the shock of it all, time only allowed for his heart to become overwhelmed with everything and nothing at all. Eiji just doesn’t know anymore. He’s so very tired. His throat is beginning to constrict, like the air within the bathroom’s walls has become scarce. 

How does he manage these feelings without Ash? These feelings that have made a home in his heart, what pain him every waking moment― yet, when he tries to sleep and escape it all, the dreams only carve more out of him. Returning to reality becomes so much worse after nights like those. He’s just a shell, a husk of what he used to be. This life wrings him dry. And this space, inside him, which Ash used to occupy is just a void. He feels so empty. There’s nothing left inside except these lingering feelings living like cobwebs in every corner of his hollowed out self. And there’s no one to dust them away. 

What little is remaining of Eiji yearns for Him, for someone. His heart is crying out for Ash, unheard, unseen. He still worries, and stings with a need, a need for many things that cannot be given. He still feels it all; the love, fear, guilt, as fresh as the first day. Love is a rose that is never withering, with thorns constantly digging into his heart and body. The fear is like ice in his veins, sharp and merciless. It spreads throughout him, bringing a numbing chill. The guilt is a burning, the kind of stinging burn that comes from a frigid, frostbitten heart. 

It weighs on his mind and body, living deep inside of him. And he’s so tired of it. All of it. Not knowing how to move on, how to cope with these emotions that plague him. Not only that but the loneliness most of all, a shadow that he can’t seem to shake off. It lives inside him, filling that empty space beneath his ribs. Filling it with unsubstantial darkness so that the emptiness is never truly gone, but the obscurity only grows. It has become so cold. He’s tired.

Dancing between the web of shadows, is the bittersweet taste of questions that he never got to ask Ash. They appear fleetingly, some days more bitter than others, some days more sweet. Dark and light. All the same, questions on the tip of his tongue, resting heavy yet weightlessly on his mind. That in itself is a burden to Eiji. He feels it very acutely. But there’s no one who can answer these questions for him. And he’s too scared to discover the answers should he ask them to himself, letting his mind take over the response. Loneliness surges beneath his skin once again.

Eij flinches abruptly at the jarring ringing, sounding distantly from outside the bathroom. His eyes snap open at the sudden shrillness of the phone. He opens the door, the shrieking only becoming unmuffled, and cleanly piercing into his eardrums. He steps out of the bathroom, bare feet meeting the cold hardwood floor of his bedroom. Almost immediately, the familiar darkness creeps along the ground to tickle his feet, slipping between his toes and creeping up his heels to his ankles. He walks across the span of his floor, ignoring the tendrils of shadow wrapping themselves around him. They relinquish their grip as he moves, but at every placement of his foot they rise up again, only to get left behind. 

The phone falls quiet just as he makes it to his desk. Glancing at the round clock hanging on the wall, Eiji has a feeling of who it probably was. His breath catches as he realizes that he was planning on picking up the call. Usually, when Sing can’t visit Eiji’s home, he calls. Same time every night that he spends away. These nightly check-ups of Sing’s usually go ignored by Eiji. 

His head is spinning, the shadows are swimming around his feet. Why had he been going to pick it up? Had he lost track of the time? Nobody else calls him at night, so why..? He shakes it off. What does it matter. Sing knows this drill too. It’s just another message ignored, joining the list of “missed” calls and the pile of unopened letters. If Sing is so worried, why doesn’t he call more than once anymore? Or even use the spare house key Eiji gave him for emergencies?

Eiji’s heartbeat and breathing are loud in the oppressive silence now present at the ringing phone’s silence. He sways briefly, the silence pressing down on his shoulders and ribs. The blood in his ears is pounding in time with his breaths. He lets his hands fall to the desktop to steady himself, to stay grounded. At the touch of a familiar cool, glossy texture on his fingers and palms, Eiji immediately recoils. Some of the photos cling to his clammy hands, hanging on for a second before he flaps them panickedly making the pieces of paper relinquish their hold and descend back to the table. 

He balls his hands up into trembling fists, clutching them to his chest. His eyes are fixed on the photos laying once again where he had left them, scattered and spread, a couple nights ago. The tightness in his chest releases and his breath whooshes out as he sees that they were only shots of the city skyline. He lets his gaze sweep over his desk slowly, passing over the city photos, only to realize that almost the entirety of the smooth wood surface is covered in his work materials. Photographs everywhere, scattered in his own system of organized chaos. A bustling night city, still morning beaches, sunsets, sunrises, steel towers, vibrant trees, faces, bodies. 

At one upper corner of Eiji’s desk sits his desk lamp, waiting patiently to be illuminated again by a gentle touch. At the other corner is his chunky black camera bag, sitting overtop a thin, wellkept wooden box. Eiji’s eyes linger there, hanging onto the partially covered box. It seems innocent enough at first glance, but he knows better. A Pandora’s box of memories he supposes. This plain looking thing is the hiding place for pictures and film, moments frozen in a time gone by. The precious memories of a precious life. 

With a jolt, Eiji urgently needs the camera bag off the box. It can’t be sitting atop that wood, not with the substantial weight of all equipment he knows it holds within. What if it broke the box? The film..! He reaches for the bag, fingers trembling as he nears the wooden container. He snatches up the nylon handle, lifting the heavy bag away. He pulls back his desk chair sharply with his free hand and places his bag a little less carefully than normal, into the seat. 

Eiji’s eyes leap back to the wooden box, eyes scanning rapidly over its smooth surface. It is unscathed, just a thin layer of dust on the lid’s perimeter. The bag had been placed down and picked up the dust thinly blanketing the wooden lid beneath before being removed. The shape of it is made out by the untouched dust marking where exactly the bag had been resting. Everything is perfectly fine. His hands are still quivering, heart beating loudly in his ears. His breathing is shallow. He doesn’t quite know why. But the box is there; safe, and close to Eiji.

The emotions swimming in his head are rising and falling like a tide beneath his skin, and water slipping through his fingers. He just can’t grasp them, comprehend the rhyme or reason to them either. Sometimes the water laps gently and calmly, an inner peace at having the box and its contents safe and sound and existing. And some days are more of waves crashing and spraying foam with the rising fear and sadness and pain that make him want to rid himself of the box as to never be exposed to it’s contents again.

It’s a constant, torturous cycle of wanting to take out the film and photos and just sit and flip through them, but also to hide the box very far away with a keyless lock so that he never has the chance to open it. He wants to see and remember, but at the same time he doesn’t. When he searches his mind for memories of some, even just a few of the film inside the box, he pulls up blank. There might be fleeting glances of a possible moment but there’s nobody present inside the moment. Ash has disappeared. The film is empty and lifeless. 

This makes Eiji’s ribcage press down on his lungs. They never fully acknowledged it, did they? All these printed memories, hidden away, serve as reminders to what they had never been able to do. Words unspoken yet understood in a moment, which was captured but became faded and buried under the weight of time. Eiji just wants to know. He wants Ash to know. He wants to know if Ash knows. Knew. If only the heart could speak clearly, no words would need to be spoken.

Eij pulls away from his desk, backing up slowly. He watches as the box gets swallowed up by the darkness of his still unlit room. He forcibly turns on his heel, shadows tugging at him once more. They go around his ankles and pull at the hems of his pants, gradually slowing Eiji’s pace as he makes his way towards the bed. 

The curtains hanging over the bedside window are not fully closed. There’s only a sliver of sky visible from where they fail to meet. The gossamery, white fabric does not hinder much light, not alone in it’s flimsiness without the sturdy shutters which lay open. But this night does not possess much light at all, with only the sliver of moon present in the sky. The darkness adds weight to the atmosphere of his room. Eiji is slowly sinking into his exhaustion. Everything is heavy. He just wants to lay down.

Eiji stops at the side of his bed. His legs are hardly inches away from brushing the mattress and blankets. He left it neatly made, the dark blue duvet folded crisply along the bed’s edges. The white of the pillows and bedspread is almost glowing in the faint light of night from his window, glowing in this otherwise darkened room. 

Shadows continue to slink tentatively up his ankles to curl around his calves. Everything is so quiet. So still. So heavy. The shadows are like whispers of a breeze, a gentle touch. Eiji’s tired. The bed beckons to him. White and blue invite him to close his eyes and sink into their depths, to dream. But Eiji knows rest is not something he will be finding here. Nevertheless, he pulls back the covers. The shadows grow heavier around his feet the moment he touches the blankets. Without a second thought, he pulls his feet from the shadows to slip into the bed.

Eiji throws the thick covers over himself as he settles into the mattress. The pillow and sheets are cool to his touch. Eiji squirms where he’s laying on his back, attempting futilely to get comfortable for yet another long night ahead of himself. He lays there. It’s quiet; the room, the night, his mind. His eyes won’t close. He’s tired. His mind stirs slightly, rousing again against his exhaustion. Eiji flips from his back to lay on his side, mirroring this shift in his head. He’s facing the window, which he keeps his eyes on relatively steadily, as the window in his mind begins to open. He knows very well what is to come. It has become something so unhealthily familiar. 

The blankets aren’t warming up with him beneath them. They remain cold, as if there wasn’t anybody wrapped up in the fabrics at all. A familiar chill begins to seep in, through the sheets, through his skin. Eiji represses a shiver at the brush of icey fingers against his flesh. His skin prickles at the faint touches. He curls into himself a little, tucking his knees up closer to his body and bringing his arms to his chest. 

There’s a noticeable weight to the silence now, a heaviness to the stillness. It presses down on him, as if he is lying beneath a multitude of thick duvets, not just one. The air is beginning to thin. It feels as if the oxygen is slowly being drained from his bedroom. It seems like it’s becoming harder to breathe. Eiji can’t move, he’s paralyzed with the heaviness pushing downwards and keeping him immobile. His lungs are fighting the weight against them and each inhale feels so shallow.

Following suite is the darkness which emerges, uncurling from the shadows of his room to slink across his covers. It seeps through his blanket and the touch of the inky tendrils are like gentle strokes against Eiji’s skin. He can’t see them as they brush against him, but he feels them sink into his skin; sweetly, softly. They are light caresses that gradually fade away as the dark is taken in through his skin, into his body. 

Eiji’s eyes are still on the window. He lets his eyes drift over the still, thin, white fabric. _Ah, that’s right. They still aren’t closed fully._

He allows his eyes to rest on the fraction of uncovered glass, gazing through the gap between gossamer white into the velvet ink sky. It’s dark, the sky ocean, without the glimmering street lights visible. Its waters have become much deeper than when he had last seen them. He catches a glimpse of the sliver of milky moon, but there are no stars visible tonight. A lonely, barely there, glowing stone of the night. The moon, who celebrates another defeat of the sun in its lonesome. 

Eiji feels heavy, it pulls at him. He’s sinking, but his weighty limbs won’t move. It has become so hard to breathe. Although he is aware of his breath still coming and going, slowly and steadily, it appears as if he isn’t intaking any oxygen at all. Eiji’s lungs burn as if he is not breathing at all, but he can sense the constant, steady rise and fall of his chest. And his mind is calm. Tranquil waters that are undisturbed by the turmoil of drowning, suffocating sensations. 

He thinks it to be because of how his perception of days and nights have fused into one. Sun or moon, light or darkness, it makes no difference in the end. Darkness nips at Eiji’s heels no matter how he runs and hides. So he’s stopped trying. It’s all the same to him now. Void, empty, cold, alone. Time has been flying by, whisking Eiji away without giving him anything to anchor himself to. Nothing fills him nor warms him. Not like before. His mind begins to stir, window widening, murky ripples breaking the lucid waters. _It’s not like before._

Eiji doesn’t need to close his eyes to remember. The ripples lap at the walls of his mind, the window is cracked open just enough for them to enter. The darkness of this room, the night, _everything_ , is enough to allow memories to filter through. 

He’s suddenly eating dinner with Ash; a sushi dinner in a dingy hideout room. The air smelled musty and stale but they couldn’t have cared less. The rolls were flavorful on their tongues, although the natto was not to Ash’s taste. Everything blurs; all the times they ate meals together, shared dishes. It shifts and then slows, allowing Eiji to relive flashes of the times he made meals for the both of them, the playful banter they would share often around those times. The carefree bickering and teasing, unrestrained cursing and innuendo-making was relief in the middle of hardship. Like a breath of fresh air, a ray of sunshine filtering through storm clouds. It bubbles in his chest, a chuckle that is light with crisp wind and sun. 

Those brief moments of relief were refreshing, calming, and stabilizing. Eiji can also feel the ghosting sensations of his body brimming with adrenaline, only to crumble under the sudden rush of exhaustion in another second. It was survival. They had to take what little joy they could in instances like those. Call them distractions or significant moments, either way it was what helped them get by. 

Eiji's mind ripples again, moving on to that one night where Ash cried himself to sleep in Eiji’s lap. He is sitting with the plush hotel mattress beneath him, holding Ash through his tears. There is the weight of Ash’s head on his lap, in his hands, and the quivering of his body against Eiji’s. 

He is thrown again into another memory of Ash holding him this time, as he taught Eiji how to use a gun for the first time. He’s enveloped once more in the faint smell of the weapon, the weight of it in his hands, the sharp sound of his shot, and the aftershock sent up through his wrists. There’s also the press of a body against his, a voice in his ear, warm hands on unsteady ones. He can feel the touch of warm sunlight against his skin, the crisp smell of grass, and the breeze which is bringing both.

Eiji blinks and he’s sitting in a familiar library. In front of him is Ash, reading quietly, peacefully. His features are soft without tension and worry, and his hair is like spun gold in the thin rays of sun leaking through the big windows. To be able to see him relaxed like this; enjoying this safe space and his precious reading, makes Eiji’s heart ache just as much as the first time. He wants this happiness and normalcy to last, for Ash to be able to live with this tranquility.

The scene changes again: Eiji’s back in a hideout. They’re sitting on a worn bed, him and Ash, and he’s telling the blonde about his home back in Japan. Eiji can see Ash’s face as he was speaking. Those bright, green eyes were focused solely on him and his words. Eiji’s body is warm, warm with Ash’s words and actions, his presence and his promises. 

It floods back into his head; the way Ash protected Eiji with his everything throughout their entire journey. It fills Eiji to the brim. He isn’t cold, he isn’t empty, he isn’t alone. But those feelings had never been fully acknowledged between them. They had been left unspoken, and eventually receded from the tips of their tongues. The way His eyes were, His voice, why is it so faded now? What shade had they been? How had His voice sounded in his ears? 

Everything is fading and Eiji grasps desperately onto the scarlet-tinged memories of treating Ash’s wounds. He hears their laughter, His hissed complaints, and stifling silence from many of the different occasions. He has seen it all, all of Ash’s different faces. The only face he can’t see in his mind, in these rippling memories, is the one he made as he left Eiji. 

He is ripped away from those distant, time-faded memories and brought into more recent moments, although still very much in the past. Eiji is standing on the balcony of his house, his very own bedroom. Theirs, at that time. They are watching the sun set from their home, the sky and clouds are splashed with vibrant hues. Ash’s arms are around his waist, chin on his shoulder. They aren’t talking, even with many words left to be said. The rising night breeze brings a freshness to the air, but Eiji is warm in Ash’s presence. He feels lit up, just like that very sky. Their home felt that way too, like this sky was seeping into its walls.

He remembers the meals they shared here, in this once-bright home, with friends or just the pair of them. The fun Eiji and Ash had cooking together; the absurd quantity of mess produced, and how the space had filled with the bright sound of music and laughter. The kitchen is empty now; quiet and lifeless. Eiji recalls the nights spent in their bed, skin against skin, arms around each other. Innocent nights with mumbled ‘goodnight’s, or less than pure evenings with rousing kisses.

He can feel the press of a familiar body, a presence surrounding him in a bed that did not try to drown him. Eiji remembers fulfilling nights that were brilliantly lit with their passion and affection, or glowing softly with tranquility and fondness. There was no emptiness, no cold, no loneliness. They were days filled to overflowing with laughter, smiles, and whispered words. A multitude of bright mornings and luminescent nights fills his head like stars.

Eiji is abruptly doused in cold water as the rippling memories become tidal waves surging and pulling him down, down, down. The stars have been lost in the chaos. Everything is dark. He is drifting between sleep and awakeness. He can hear someone crying, it’s a little muffled, as if they are trying to silence themselves. It’s such a sad sound, why..? Quietly, so quietly that Eiji almost misses it, is a goodbye in his mother tongue. 

_Sayonara._

With a jolt, his vision clears and he’s back in the present. Alone. The bedside is cold, the room is empty. But it’s not over yet. The memory’s ripples continue and Eiji closes his eyes against the onslaught of past thoughts and questions. 

_Why are you saying goodbye? Are you going somewhere far away? Ash, where did you go? Where are you now?_

The most painful ripple was of the wish to see Him once more, abruptly searing through his mind. Again, without warning, he’s in an airplane desperately trying to fight the panic rising in his chest. They’re rushing back to New York after the news, Eiji’s wound is still burning a hole in his flesh. Flash forward to staring down at the letter trembling in his unsteady hands, stained with hope and heartbreak. 

_You’ve gone off on your own again? This time somewhere far away? Where? I want to see you. I wish I could see you. I wish I was with you righ―_

Eiji struggles to escape the tight grasp of the memories, blinking hard against his burning eyes to focus his vision and ground himself. The darkness is still around him, and it’s still hard to breathe. Eiji’s hurting. Why does it hurt so much? How Ash has always been, to him… Eiji shudders. He pushes that back deep down, away from where the waves had brought it back to the surface. 

Eiji wishes for Him to be here now, to hold him. His lips part. He wants to call for Him, a cry for help. Eiji wants to say something but there is no one here, except the darkness. The darkness which wants to continue being absorbed inside of him. It creeps closer and Eiji closes his mouth. What can he say anyways? Who can he cry to? He’s alone. Nobody’s listening. Maybe Eiji should just make a sound, open his mouth and say something, anything to understand that he is truly existing here in this bed, this room, this hour. 

Would he be doing better right now if his dreams were more pleasant? Is Eiji being greedy, asking for the small mercy of having dreams where he’s not flying so uncontrollably high that he dissolves into nothingness? Is he deserving of being paralyzed in a dream, suffocating under blankets of obscurity which compress him into nothing? Is that too much to wish for dreams where he isn’t haunted by the twisted and distorted memories of Ash?

Eiji craves for these dreams to fill him up and to warm him, instead of digging deeper into his being and creating more of this cold emptiness. The space inside of him where precious memories come to rest, has no presence or heat, but only weight that drags him down, down, down. If his dreams could change, then maybe, just maybe, he would be able to rest. Rest everything; eyes, mind, body, heart. Rest. 

But Eiji cannot sleep, be it from the dreams of which he both loves and fears or something else entirely. His open eyes are still burning. He can feel the memories brimming inside of himself, and the tears gradually rising in his vision. He extends an arm towards the space besides him, the space left for another warm body. Only to be met with a cold bedside. Eiji draws his arm back, tucking it close and curling even tighter into himself.

Then, just like the memories had, the tears overflow. They are stinging hotly against his cheeks, trickling over his skin. They aren't enough to fill the space He left behind. The gaping hole inside and everywhere around Eiji can’t be filled. He’s given up on trying to fill it.

What would happen if he chose to let the darkness in completely? These feelings; this yearning and longing, this empty pain, this lingering love gone stale. He should forget it all. Would the dark be able to erase them for him? Eiji’s tears continue over his face and into his pillow. He doesn’t fight them. What would happen if he just.. stopped. Would he fade away? Eiji remains in place, unmoving. 

The tears are flowing over him like a tide, and all the darkness has become blurred. Eiji is floating, the mattress is no longer under his body, pillow nowhere beneath his head. Is he breathing? It doesn’t feel like he’s moving, lungs, ribcage, anything. It’s just still, everything. He has become so heavy, surprisingly so, in the absence of anything inside himself. Eiji’s tired, his eyelids are heavy, his heart is heavy. He lets himself go. Allows himself to be pulled under once more, into darkness. He floats, memories come and go beneath his closed eyes. They contort, both beautifully and grotesquely. Is he still crying? 

There’s a knocking on the front door of his house. It’s soft, barely there in the distance, a ghost. Eiji’s imagination, maybe even the cruel darkness playing tricks. It doesn’t come again. The night sky fills his vision, ink dripping from the corners oozing shadows. The moon is nowhere to be seen. His hollow heart fills with the memories and feelings that choke him. Sleeping and dreaming, Eiji lets the cavity widen.

Surprisingly, it doesn’t all come rushing in, not like before. It’s more of a heavy trickle, strangely enough. It’s as if all that was left to come in, wasn’t much in the first place. It comes slowly; more weight subtly soaking into his being, heavy emptiness and loneliness sinking deeper. Eiji feels unnoticeable, unneeded, unwanted. Invisible. It’s heavy, yanking him further into the mattress, into the darkness. Nobody cares. They can’t care about what they don’t see. Eiji is alone. 

He used to be special to someone. Now who will be the one to come find him? Who will be the one to tear Eiji away from the monsters in his head? His mouth is dry, he can taste the bitter regret on his tongue. There’s also the tang of salty tears tinged with sorrow and heartache.

Eiji yearns for the warmth of another presence besides him, physical or not. Just someone who he can look to when he needs them most, and trust in their ability to be here for him. It’s not quite right when it’s friends or family. Instead: a lover. Eiji just wants someone to fill the empty side in his bed, someone to hold him when the dark― inside and out, becomes too much. 

Someone needs to tell him that he _is_ okay. He wants for someone to comfort and reassure him, that he is loved and he is appreciated for who he is. Eiji just wants confirmation that it’s okay, okay to live the life he wants to live. He needs praise and encouragement for a failing self-esteem, reminders that he is loved with all his doubts and fears. Someone to tell him that he does matter in some way, that he is wanted and needed. Ash was that somebody. And Eiji wants that somebody back.

In the absence of light, he needs the dawn to come. He wants for this endless day-night to be gone and done. His cycle of day and night only can be broken by a dawning. A difference, a visible shift, a statement of change. No more of this torturous, imprisoning blend of day and night that become one, indistinguishable from each other. 

Eiji is helpless without Ash by his side. He is tired, lonely, and without a bright sun to guide him. The lack of light allows for the darkness to grow; bleak despair and self-hatred. He just wants for someone to hold him at this moment. He is losing himself. He feels faded. He misses what once was. He misses fuller days, in a lively home, Ash. He is―

He’s flying and falling, the moon is jarringly full and bright but he’s losing sight of it. Is he dreaming? It feels the same as living. Eiji’s vision blurs with dancing shadows and hazy tears, tired heaviness. The moon is snuffed out. It’s all dark now. His skin prickles slightly with the cold. He floats, alone.

.

There’s the sound of a distant key in a lock through the darkness. He’s drifting. Far away is the creaking of wooden floorboards, the brief squeak of his bedroom door being brushed open. It’s muffled, as if through water. Then there’s a warm body against his. It burns, far from the cold he has become accustomed too. The feeling of another’s breathing, heated breath against the nape of his neck, and the rise and fall of a firm chest. Arms come around him, still scalding hot. Eiji squirms in the darkness, limbs moving sluggishly. He wants to escape this discomfort but― there’s a soothing voice and a steady heartbeat. Darkness recedes, 

and the dawn rises to wretched sobbing, shaking arms curled around a shaking body.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun Fact: I came up with this fic’s plot right after finishing reading Banana Fish, prior to reading the side stories. To my surprise (read: horror and joy), it managed to line up almost perfectly with Garden of Light.  
> Fun Fact pt2: That ending part I made with 4 different scenarios in mind so there’s no right or wrong answer to what you think is happening hehe~
> 
> Anyways thank you for making it this far, I’ll be back w more angst soon!  
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/lovele_ah) // [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/leahahaha)


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